The real story behind the murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik

By now you'll probably have heard about Netflix's new true crime series, The Keepers. Most likely because it's on the cusp of release; the full seven-part documentary lands on Netflix tomorrow, May 19th.

In the run up to its release, you might have heard (from us, in fact) comparisons between The Keepers and Netflix's ten-part series from 2016, Making A Murderer,but having watched the recent docu-series, it could be said that the only similarities there really are between the two shows is that they focus on a murder, and that they're both fascinatingly brilliant.

Netflix

The Keepers centres on the death of 26-year-old nun, Sister Cathy Cesnik, who went missing from Baltimore, Maryland on November 7th, 1969. Her body was found decomposed two months later, but the case soon went cold, and wasn't reopened again until decades later when new light was shed regarding information she knew about a scandal that had taken place in the school she worked in. Information which may have led to her murder...

So what really did happen to Sister Cathy Cesnik?

***Warning: contains spoilers***

Who was Sister Cathy Cesnik?

Born in 1942, Sister Catherine Cesnik did what many young women growing up in the staunchly Catholic area of Baltimore did; she became a nun. By the age of 26, in 1969, she was working in the highly-regarded Archbishop Keough school, which was recognised as "the jewel in the archdiocese".

Standing at 5 feet, 5 inches tall, of slim build with green eyes, blonde hair and a fair complexion, the Sister was a warm, attractive young woman. She lived with a fellow nun, Sister Helen Russell Phillips, and worked as an English teacher at Keough.

Netflix

Sister Cathy was utterly adored by her all-female students. In a letter written by one of her pupils, Rebecca Ferrara Quinn in 2014, 45 years after her unsolved murder, she was described as a woman "full of grace".

"Not only was Sister Catherine a gifted teacher, but she also had the grace to draw girls to trust her and confide in her," the letter read, and it was this quality in the nun - the approachability that led several of her pupils to share their darkest of secrets and worries - that may eventually have led to her death.

The mystery unfolds

When Sister Catherine's sister got engaged at the beginning of November 1969, the nun was eager to get her a congratulatory present, so she left the apartment she shared with Sister Russell at 7:30 pm on the evening of Friday 7th November to cash in a cheque at a local bank, before shopping for a gift at the local Edmondson Village shopping centre.

She didn't return, and would never be seen alive again.

The Baltimore Sun archives

"A friend, the Rev. Peter McKeow, who drove to Baltimore from Beltsville to comfort Sister Russell, found Sister Catherine's abandoned car during a walk near the nun's residence at 4:40 a.m., police said", read an article published in local newspaper The Sun, dated November 9th, 1969.

The car was discovered unlocked, and had been parked a little way from the kerb very near to Sister Cathy's house. Leaves and twigs were found inside, but there was no sign of the nun. Everyone who knew Sister Cathy was baffled, they couldn't think of a reason she would have gone missing voluntarily out of the blue, and it soon became apparent that the Sister's disappearance was sinister.

The cover up

The hunters weren't the first people to have discovered the nun's deceased body, it would turn out. Back in November 1969, just days after Sister Cathy had gone missing, one of her pupils - 16-year-old Jean Hargadon Wehner - recalls having been driven to the site of the body by the school's Chaplain, Father Joseph Maskell.

The Priest walked the student to the dump area in which Sister Cathy lay, lifeless in her familiar coat and with maggots on her face, and made her look. "I knew it was her," Jean recalled in an interview with Huffington Post decades later. "She wasn’t that far gone that you couldn’t tell it was her."

Father Joseph Maskell

Netflix

It wasn't the first time Maskell and a teenage Jean had spent time alone together; he had systematically abused the youngster for years, she claims - both sexually and emotionally - taking advantage of his position of responsibility in the school and his authority as a member of the clergy.

"You see what happens when you say bad things about people?" he whispered threateningly to Jean, as she dashed towards her beloved teacher, desperately trying to remove the grotesque creatures from her face.

Jean didn't tell a soul about what she had witnessed."He terrified me to the point that I would never open my mouth," she said years later, reflecting on why she hadn't shared her grim discovery. And she wouldn't make any mention of it again until 1992, when it all came flooding back.

Sexual abuse

Jean repressed this memory, along with the ones about what Father Maskell had done to her, for almost 20 years until she was reunited with a former school friend and it forced her to address the past.

The past in which she had been sexually assaulted by her own uncle, who stood and watched as other men had their way with his juvenile niece. The past in which she defied the fears her devout Catholic faith had impressed on her - that she was a sinner because of this abuse - to share the details of her trauma with a priest during Confession. The past in which that very priest, Father Maskell, preyed on her because of this previous abuse, enabling him to conduct his own. The past in which he would call her out of class into his office, sexually assault her, and then use his own semen to draw the sign of the cross on her forehead when he was finished, telling her it was the Holy Spirit, and would cleanse her of her sins.

A terrible, unthinkable past.

Jean Hargadon Wehner

Netflix

Jean Hargadon Wehner wasn't the only pupil at Keough who later reported to have experienced this abuse, but Sister Cathy - observant and alert to her students' emotions as she was - had cottoned on at the time, and had tried to put an end to it. Was this what got Sister Cathy killed? Was she being silenced?

Years later

The investigation into the widely-loved nun's death reopened long after it had gone cold when Jean, now a married mother of two, eventually opened up about her difficult past in 1992. This bravery prompted a number of fellow students to come forward about their own, similar experiences. one of whom, Teresa Lancaster, became the co-complainant in a civil lawsuit against Maskell with Jean, who anonymised herself, going by the name of Jane Doe.

That case was thrown out of court due to a law at the time which ruled civil lawsuits regarding cases of sexual abuse had to be brought within three years of the alleged offence. The Church, on the side of Maskell, further argued that it was unlikely the girls would have repressed their memories of the abuse for so long. Maskell had got away with it.

Netflix

Despite the civil case being thrown out, police began to investigate the priest following the testimony of Jean, Teresa and the other former Keough pupils, but in a cowardly move, he fled to Ireland, where he stayed until he died in 2001.

The police never did manage to pin Maskell down as Sister Cathy's murderer after that, despite Jean's firm belief he had something to do with it. But in 2013 two of Sister Cathy's pupils, Gemma Hoskins and Abbie Schaub, got on the case, desperate to dig deeper and find out what really went on that November day in Baltimore.

Would they find any further evidence unravel that might help point the finger at someone? You'll have to watch the full seven episodes of The Keepers on Netflix to find out.

Cosmopolitan, Part of the Hearst UK Fashion & Beauty Network
Cosmopolitan participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.